Readers and guests at the wine-tasting and food pairing bask in the sunny warmth of good company in spite of the overcast skies in Beijing. Zhu Xingxin / China Daily

The China Daily's readers club gathered to enjoy a few glasses of heady vintages recently. Liu Yujie takes a closer look at the bottles.

To celebrate China Daily's 30th anniversary and the first year of the Sunday edition, about 80 readers and guests gathered at the Sunshine Atrium of the newspaper's headquarters in Beijing. On hand to give them some pointers on how to choose the best wines for summer was Sunday managing editor Pauline D Loh and Aussino World Wines' wine educator Lisa Li.

Aussino is a leading wine distributor in China and also the publication of a specialist wine magazine and a wine guide. Li chose four wines and one non-alcoholic grape juice for the occasion.

The afternoon was off to a sparkling start with an Italian Prosecco, which was an instant crowd pleaser - the Santa Margherita Prosecco Brut 52 (199 yuan, $31).

On the nose, it offers attractive floral notes of peach and acacia blossom alongside delicate scents of apples, all expressed with great cleanness and elegance. On the palate, there is perfect harmony between the fresh sensations and the delicacy of the fruit.

The name "52" refers both to the year in which Santa Margherita, one of the three largest wineries in Italy, started making sparkling Prosecco, and to the number of parcels of vineyard - in the historic heartland of the Prosecco di Valdobbiadene DOCG production zone.

"Because of its pronounced yet elegant personalities on both the nose and palate, this wine has been selected by AC Milan to be used to celebrate each of their victories," Li says.

The wine is ideal with cream cheese appetizers as its fruity acidity balances their richness, but it is versatile enough to be served throughout a meal.

For those who prefer to stay with the whites, Li's next suggestion was a crisp Saint Clair Sauvignon Blanc (215 yuan) from Marlborough in New Zealand's South Island.

"It's fresh, taut and pure, and avoids that unnecessary sweetness of many in this vintage. It is a really uncompromising taste." But like the air in Marlborough, according to Li, it is addictive and rightly deserves its crown as the country's signature vintage.

Sauvignon Blanc is a deliciously crisp and intense wine with flavors and aromas of guava, passion fruit and blackcurrant with underlying gooseberry tones. Swirled around the glass, it is a pale straw color with green hues. Well-balanced acidity provides a long, lingering finish. With an impressive string of accolades, Saint Clair produces New Zealand's most awarded Sauvignon Blanc.

Grapes for this wine are carefully sourced from a selection of vineyards and sub-regions including the Lower Wairau Valley and Rapaura. Each vineyard block is harvested when it reaches maximum flavor maturity and physiological ripeness.

For desserts or an aperitif, a slightly sweeter variety of white may pamper the palate. Li says the Weltachs Spatlese (118 yuan) would be the ideal wine to quench a summertime thirst. It is a German medium-sweet white wine. Late-harvested, the wine is light gold with a fruity aroma of apple and citrus. The wine has a very beautiful Chinese name - wanqiu qingtian (the fresh sweetness of late autumn).

"Only the best is good enough" is the Weltachs' philosophy, and it selects only the best vines and applies the most advanced techniques. The wine is a mixture of 75 percent Pinot Blanc and 25 percent Riesling, and has a transparency that reveals a mineral note in it.

With vineyards in the northern part of Germany's Pfalz region, Weltachs has perhaps the best climate and soil for growing these grapes. Instead of testing out the world's popular grape varieties, Weltachs focuses on its traditional domestic grapes in making unique German dessert wines.

"When served with fish and fruit cakes, the wine relieves the heaviness of sultry mid-summer evenings," Li says.

Finally, Li also showcased a red - Taylors Shiraz (215 yuan), an Australian wine that appears deep red with ruby hues.

It is vibrant and rich on the palate with generous fruit flavors and aromas of plum, blackcurrant and dark cherry, along with black olives and a touch of oak-derived spice and subtle chocolate.

"The wine is medium to full-bodied with a soft mid-palate and supple tannins. It has a well balanced structure with great texture, good length and lashings of fruit on the finish," Li says, "It's an all-around, everyman's red wine and satisfies at just about any occasion."

To enjoy this wine to its fullest, you may have some intense, ripe, rich mocha or dark chocolate cake, as hints of dark chocolate and coffee in the wine best amplify the similar spicy sweetness in chocolate cakes.

For those who have to sit out at a wine tasting because they are the designated drivers, Li recommends a wonderful alcohol-free summer drink - the Lion's Land Sparkling Grape Juice (93 yuan).

The grapes come from select top vineyards in Cape Town and the juice is produced by South Africa's richest family - the Ruperts.

"It is a fresh, youthful drink and tastes just like champagne."

You can contact the writer at liuyujie@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/07/2011 page15)